Jason Miller, executive editor, Federal News Radio

The IT Industry Council is calling the lawsuits by TechAmerica "fatally deficient"
and "nebulous" and is asking the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to
dismiss both actions against the association and against the three former
TechAmerica officials who now work for ITI.

In briefs filed Nov. 27, ITI's lawyer, Leslie Paul Machado of LeClairRyan detailed
in two separate documents what he said are problems with TechAmerica's claims
filed Nov. 8 against ITI and three of its former employees: Trey Hodgkins, Pam
Walker and Carol Henton. He said the claims do not meet the standards of law for
several reasons.

"[T]he complaint fails these basic and fundamental rules: it repeatedly fails to
allege facts sufficient to support the material elements of TechAmerica's putative
causes of action, instead relying upon recitations of the elements of a claim or
omitting elements completely," the documents stated.

TechAmerica sued
ITI and three of four former employees who left to join the trade organization
to launch a new public sector office. TechAmerica claimed breach of contract and
is seeking $5 million in damages.

Hodgkins, Walker, Henton and Erica McCann left TechAmerica with little notice and
allegedly tried to recruit 12 companies to pay $50,000 each to join ITI's new IT Alliance for the
Public Sector (ITAS).

"We continue to believe this legal action is imprudent and a waste of resources
that are best devoted to advancing policy on behalf of the sector," said Dean
Garfield, president of ITI, in an email to board members. "With that in mind, we
intend to pursue a singular strategy of moving to resolve this matter quickly and
efficiently. We would prefer to achieve that goal through settlement; however, to
date, TechAmerica has rejected our overtures. As such, we intend to move
expeditiously to seek a judicial resolution while remaining open to a settlement."

Politico first reported the request for dismissal by ITI.

No wrongful conduct?

In the first suit against ITI, Machado said TechAmerica's claim of
tortious interference is problematic because it "fails to allege facts showing any
intentional, wrongful conduct by defendants that interfered with TechAmerica's
relationship with its members."

He said TechAmerica failed to show both improper interference or resulting damages
from the former employees recruiting companies to join ITAS.

"[T]he complaint alleges only that one of the defendants (Ms. Henton) allegedly
contacted TechAmerica members to inform them of her move to ITI, and to ask them
to become members of ITI," the document stated.

Machado also said the other most serious complaint, misappropriation of trade
secrets, fails as well because TechAmerica did not show the information is
valuable "due to it not being generally known to, and not being readily
ascertainable by, proper means by another who can obtain economic value from its
disclosure or use, and is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its
secrecy."

He wrote that the courts have ruled that the client lists of lobbyists are not
trade secrets because the information is publicly available. Additionally, Machado
wrote case law provides that such information must be protected by means such as
passwords, physical locks, limited access or non-disclosure agreements.

TechAmerica, he said, did none of those, and its employee handbook, which all
employees must sign, doesn't make reference to trade secrets or other information
that may be covered by confidentiality obligations.

More evidence coming

Shawn Osborne, TechAmerica's president, said in an email statement on the
request for dismissal that the evidence it found against Hodgkins, Walker and
Henton and
presented in the lawsuit is "just the tip of the iceberg." Osborne also called
ITI's assertion that the three are not using any of the information in their new
roles at ITAS "preposterous."

"But the theft was not the only willfully unethical and illegal act by these
employees. These individuals maliciously destroyed huge amounts of data from
TechAmerica servers and computers, including data created by other TechAmerica
team members. Each of these statements can be backed up with documented evidence,"
he said. "We have shared much of this evidence with ITI and have offered to share
the additional evidence recently uncovered in a good faith effort to bring this
situation to a conclusion. Our invitation to look at the boxes of evidence we have
uncovered remains open. We agree with Mr. Garfield, the industry is being harmed.
But it's being harmed because one industry representative is stealing IP from
another."

As for the lawsuits against Hodgkins, Walker and Henton, ITI's lawyer stated, the claims are "based upon the faulty presumption that
there is an employment contract or other agreement between them and TechAmerica
that contains noncompete or non-solicitation provision. That is false. In fact,
none of the individual defendants entered into any agreement or contract with
TechAmerica that prevented them from approaching or soliciting its members, or
from competing with TechAmerica for business. Indeed, TechAmerica does not assert
that the individual defendants were bound by any non-compete or non-solicit
provision. Instead, it claims that the individual defendants somehow breached
various provisions of its employee handbook."